Hard-nosed look at counterinsurgency
A Pakistani take on COIN doctrineCurrent Pak actions.
Writing in the Pakistan Tribune, Anwaar Hussain, a former Pakistani military officer, offers an approach to counterinsurgency campaigning that is less compromising than the current American doctrine:
"1. Never try to negotiate with a terrorist group. They will never honor the agreements but only use it as propaganda and to replenish and regroup.
2. Control the area. Deploy enough troops to occupy every single village, mountain and forest. The enemy must not have any place to rest. If they cannot rest, they will lose morale. And when they lose morale, they surrender. In the terminal phase of Turkey's war, PKK terrorists surrendered en masse.
3. Offer amnesty to anyone who surrenders willingly. You do not want to be seen as mindless killers. And ex-terrorists can become great COINOPS assets, as they know the enemy's tactics.
4. Always target the leaders; they are the poison wells, the snake heads. Without leaders the followers surrender easily.
5. Local support is very important. Local people generally support the side that does them less harm and also is physically closer to them. Build mini garrisons in the secured areas as you go along.
6. A terrorist group needs outside support. They need to have weapons and ammunition as supplies, safe resting and training facilities. This outside support is their life line. It must be severed. If borders are too long to control effectively, use political pressure to stop it.
7. Most important of all. The enemy must understand that you are ready to go to the end to win the war. That means a resolve for the long slog and a stomach for attrition. If the enemy thinks that you develop feet of clay rather quickly, he will continue fighting."
I would bet Petraeus and other American COINsters now looking at Afghanistan would agree with many of these, but strongly disagree with no. 1.
TARIQ MAHMOOD/AFP/Getty Images
posted by Mark, Ottawa at 7:18 p.m.
4 Comments:
to which I would add "target their money sources"
The folk who have shown a truly bizarre willingness to attempt to negotiate their way out of having to fight terrorists are europeans.
The UK suffers from this to a lesser degree, but still suffers. It was Brits who "negotiated" their enemy into positions of strength beyond their original means in Iraq at Basra and in Afghanistan at.... forgot the name of the place. But it was bad. Negotiated the turnover of a substantial area to the talibs only to have the US and Coalition forces have to come in later and take it back.
There were times, in Iraq, where "negotiations" with the enemy played out rather well though. The turn around of the 1920's Revolutionary Brigade and the beginnings of the Sons of Iraq were part of that.
For no. 2, you can only put in what you got on hand. "More boots on the ground" is a great meme to throw around, but where do you get them from? What other front do you strip to the bone for them? Where else in the world do you leave an opening for other scumbags to exploit?
The US has a very large military. Impressive numbers of men and women in uniform. And, lots of those are in the USAF or USN and have little to no real value in "boots on the ground" metrics. In the US Army, the bulk of the numbers are in the logistics train. The US doesn't have the numbers to do that "troops in every village" thing in large geographic areas.
We have allies and "allies" though. Our allies, such as y'all up in Canada, do a damn fine job with what you have. Our "allies" such as the Germans send numbers that, in effect, serve as nothing other than logistics sponges and dead weight.
Grimmy: The place for the Brits was Musa Qala. See 2) here .
Mark
Ottawa
It is to bad he is a former officer. It would please me to no end to have him address our PM and parliament.
There does not seem to be anyone in Canada that I have heard of that speaks that truth.
Post a Comment
<< Home